There are three types of calamities that occurred during each of the resets: pestilence, earthquakes, and climate collapse. The most drastic weather anomalies occurred during the Justinianic Plague, when the asteroid impact caused extreme cooling and a very harsh winter. Both the accounts of the Justinianic Plague and those of the Black Death show that global cataclysms are characterized by extremely heavy rains that fall almost continuously, causing catastrophic flooding. At the same time, other parts of the world may experience prolonged droughts. Thucydides reported, that during the Plague of Athens severe droughts occurred in sundry places. In turn, Pope Dionysius of Alexandria wrote, that during the Plague of Cyprian the Nile sometimes dried up and sometimes overflowed and flooded large areas.

The most severe global cataclysms brought about climatic anomalies that lasted for centuries. This was the case during the Late Bronze Age collapse, when drought conditions prevailed throughout the Near East, lasting two hundred years in some places and up to three hundred years elsewhere. Some scholars suggest that the cause of this mega-drought was a change in direction of the moist winds from the Atlantic Ocean. After the Justinianic Plague, the temperature did not fully return to normal for the next hundred-plus years. This period is known as the Little Ice Age. The next Little Ice Age began around the time of the Black Death and lasted for several hundred years. In this chapter, I will try to explain the mechanism behind all these climatic anomalies.

Late Antique Little Ice Age

The reset associated with the Justinianic Plague was followed by a prolonged cooling period.^(ref.) First, an asteroid struck, and a few years later volcanic eruptions occurred, resulting in an initial cooling period of 15 years. But the cooling continued thereafter for over a hundred years. This happened in a period of history when the chronology is uncertain. The anomalies probably began during the reset of 672 AD and continued until the end of the 8th century. At about the same time, a mega-drought occurred in America, dealing a severe blow to the Mayan civilization.

The collapse of the classic Mayan civilization is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in archeology. According to Wikipedia,^(ref.) the decline of the civilization between the 7th and 9th centuries was characterized by the abandonment of cities in the southern Maya lowlands of Mesoamerica. The Maya used to inscribe dates on monuments they built. Around 750 AD, the number of dated monuments was 40 per year. After that, the number begins to decline relatively quickly, to only 10 by 800 AD and to zero by 900 AD.

There is no generally accepted theory for the collapse, although drought has gained momentum as a leading explanation. Paleoclimatologists have found ample evidence that areas of the Yucatán Peninsula and Petén Basin experienced prolonged droughts at the end of the Classic Period. Severe droughts probably led to a decline in soil fertility.

According to a study by archeologist Richardson B. Gill et al., the long-term drought in the Cariaco Basin near Venezuela lasted from 760 to 930 AD.^(ref.) A marine core accurately dates four severe drought episodes to the years: 760 AD, 810 AD, 860 AD, and 910 AD, coinciding with the four phases of abandonment of cities. These were the most severe climatic changes in this region in the preceding 7,000 years. Paleoclimatologist Nicholas P. Evans and co-authors found in their study that annual precipitation decreased by 50% during the period of the Maya civilization’s collapse, with periods of up to 70% reduction in rainfall during peak drought.^(ref.)

Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age was one of the coldest periods of regional cooling in the Holocene. The cooling period was particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It ended around 1850, but there is no consensus on when it began and what was its cause. Therefore, any of several dates may be considered the beginning of the cold period, for example:
– 1257, when the great eruption of the Samalas volcano in Indonesia and the associated volcanic winter occurred.
– 1315, when heavy rains in Europe and the Great Famine of 1315–1317 occurred.
– 1645, when the minimum of solar activity (Maunder Minimum) occurred.

Many different factors contributed to the Little Ice Age, so its starting date is subjective. A volcanic eruption or a decrease in solar activity could have caused a cooling lasting for several or several dozen years, but certainly not for several centuries. Besides, both causes should have cooled the climate everywhere on Earth, and yet the Little Ice Age was felt primarily in the North Atlantic region. Therefore, I think that the volcano or the Sun could not have been the cause of this regional cooling. Scientists propose yet another explanation, perhaps the most pertinent one, according to which the cause of the cooling was a slowdown in the circulation of ocean currents. It is worth explaining first how the mechanism of water circulation in the oceans works.

A great ocean current flows through all the oceans of the world. It is sometimes called the oceanic conveyor belt. It influences the climate all over the world. Part of it is the Gulf Stream, which begins near Florida. This ocean current transports warm water northward, which then reach the vicinity of Europe with the North Atlantic Current. This current has a significant impact on the climate of the adjacent land areas. Thanks to it, the air in Western Europe is as much as about 10°C (18°F) warmer than the air at similar latitudes.^(ref.) The ocean circulation plays an important role in supplying heat to the polar regions, and thus in regulating the amount of sea ice in these regions.

The large-scale ocean circulation is driven by the thermohaline circulation, which is the circulation of oceanic waters caused by differences in the density of individual water masses. The adjective thermohaline is derived from thermo- for temperature and -haline for salinity. The two factors together determine the density of seawater. Warm seawater expands and becomes less dense (lighter) than cooler seawater. Saltier water is denser (heavier) than fresh water.

Warm surface currents from the tropics (such as the Gulf Stream) flow northward, driven by the wind. As they travel, some of the water evaporates, increasing the relative salt content and density of the water. When the current reaches higher latitudes and meets colder waters of the Arctic, it loses heat and becomes even denser and heavier, causing the water to sink to the bottom of the ocean. This deep-water formation then flows south along the coast of North America and continues on to circulate around the world.

New research by F. Lapointe and R.S. Bradley shows that the Little Ice Age was preceded by an exceptional intrusion of warm Atlantic water into the Nordic Seas in the second half of the 14th century.^{(ref., ref.)} The researchers found that there was an abnormally strong northward transfer of warm water at this time. Then, around 1400 AD, the temperature of the North Atlantic dropped suddenly, initiating a cooling period in the Northern Hemisphere that lasted about 400 years.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) strengthened significantly in the late 14th century, peaking around 1380 AD. This means that much more warm water than usual was moving northward. According to the researchers, the waters south of Greenland and the Nordic Seas became much warmer, which in turn caused rapid melting of the ice in the Arctic. Within a few decades in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, vast amounts of ice broke off the glaciers and flowed into the North Atlantic, which not only cooled the waters there but also diluted their salinity, ultimately causing AMOC to collapse. It was this collapse that triggered a substantial cooling of the climate.

My theory on the cause of climate changes

I think there is an explanation for why resets cause climate collapse, which sometimes turns into periods of several hundred years of cooling. We know that resets bring large earthquakes, that release large amounts of toxic gases (pestiferous air) from the Earth’s interior. I think that this does not happen only on land. Quite the contrary. After all, most of the seismic zones are under the oceans. It is under the oceans that the greatest shifts of tectonic plates take place. In this way, the oceans expand and the continents drift away from each other. At the bottom of the oceans, fissures form, from which gases escape, probably in much greater amounts than on land.

Now everything is very simple to explain. These gases float upward, but they probably never reach the surface, because they dissolve in the lower parts of the water. The water in the lower part of the ocean becomes „sparkling water”. It becomes light. A situation arises where the water at the top is relatively heavy and that at the bottom is relatively light. So the water from the top must fall to the bottom. And this is exactly what happens. The thermohaline circulation accelerates, and thus increases the speed of the Gulf Stream, which transports warm water masses from the Caribbean toward the North Atlantic.

Warm water evaporates much more intensively than cold water. Therefore, the air over the Atlantic becomes very humid. When this air reaches the continent, it causes continuous heavy rains. And this explains why the weather is always so rainy during the resets and why it snows heavily in winter. As Gregory of Tours wrote, „Summer months were so wet that it seemed more like Winter”. The effect of the climate collapse is even stronger if a large asteroid strikes or a volcanic eruption occurs during the reset.

After the global cataclysm, the high gas concentrations persist in the water for decades, keeping ocean circulation accelerated. During this time, the warm Gulf Stream gradually warms the waters in the polar regions, which in turn causes glaciers to melt. Eventually, water from the glaciers, which is fresh and light, spreads out over the ocean surface and prevents the water from sinking to the depths. That is, the opposite effect to what happened at the beginning occurs. The oceanic circulation slows down, so the Gulf Stream slows down and delivers less warm water to the North Atlantic region. Less heat from the ocean reaches Europe and North America. Colder water also means less evaporation, so the air from the ocean is less humid and brings less rain. A period of cold and drought begins, which can last for hundreds of years until fresh glacial water mixes with salt water and the ocean circulation returns to normal.

What remains to be explained is the cause of the severe droughts, during and after the resets, which often alternate with downpours. I think the reason is that a change in ocean circulation causes a change in atmospheric circulation. This is because a change in the temperature of the ocean surface causes a change in the temperature of the air above it. This affects the distribution of atmospheric pressure and disturbs the delicate balance between high and low pressure areas over the Atlantic. This probably results in a more frequent occurrence of the positive phase of the North Atlantic oscillation.

The North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) is a weather phenomenon associated with fluctuations in atmospheric pressure over the North Atlantic Ocean. Through fluctuations in the strength of the Icelandic Low and the Azores High, it controls the strength and direction of westerly winds and storms in the North Atlantic. Westerly winds blowing across the ocean bring moist air to Europe.

In the positive phase of the NAO, a mass of warm and moist air heads towards northwestern Europe. This phase is characterized by strong northeast winds (storms). In the region north of the Alps, winters are relatively warm and humid, while summers are relatively cool and rainy (maritime climate). And in the Mediterranean region, winters are relatively cold, with little precipitation. In contrast, when the NAO phase is negative, masses of warm and humid air are directed towards the Mediterranean region, where precipitation increases.

I suppose that during resets a positive NAO phase occurs more often. This manifests itself in prolonged droughts in southern Europe. And when the phase of the oscillation changes, these regions experience rainfall, which is additionally extremely heavy due to the warm ocean. This is why this part of the world experiences long-lasting droughts, alternating with heavy rains.

While most climatologists agree that the NAO has a much smaller impact on the United States than it does on Western Europe, the NAO is also thought to influence weather over much of upper central and eastern areas of North America. Weather anomalies have the greatest impact on the North Atlantic region because this part of the world is most dependent on ocean currents (on the Gulf Stream). However, at the time of a reset, anomalies are likely to occur all over the world. I suppose that in the Pacific we should expect a more frequent occurrence of El Niño. This weather phenomenon affects the climate in much of the world, as shown in the figure below.

We see that near the Yucatán Peninsula, where the Mayan civilization existed, El Niño brings droughts during the summer months, when rainfall should be the heaviest. It is therefore quite likely that the demise of the Maya civilization was caused by droughts due to the frequent occurrence of the El Niño phenomenon.

As you can see, everything can be explained scientifically. Now the climate lobbyists will no longer be able to convince you that the climate change that will come after the next reset is your fault, because you produce too much carbon dioxide. Man-made gases mean nothing compared to the huge amounts of gases that escape from the Earth’s interior during the resets.